Chess vs. Go Which is the better board game.

[neoliminal]

Chess has a strong Western history, but seems stagnated by over analysis.

Go has problems with ko's and super-ko's. The rules are also not entirely unified across the globe.

[Jplus]

I have a feeling nobody's going to be really fanatical about this one, but for the heck of it:

If you'd threaten me with a gun, I'd probably choose go.

[Proginoskes]

What do you mean by "better"?

BTW, in the 1980s, a lot of difficult Go positions were analyzed using Combinatorial Game Theory ... look for a book called Mathematical Go Endgames: Nightmares for the Professional Go Player by Berlecamp and Wolfe if you want the details.

[Proginoskes]

What do you mean by "better"?

BTW, in the 1980s, a lot of difficult Go positions were analyzed using Combinatorial Game Theory ... look for a book called Mathematical Go Endgames: Nightmares for the Professional Go Player by Berlecamp and Wolfe if you want the details.

You might have better luck if you spell Berlekamp's name correctly ...

[moiraemachy]

Go is clearly the superior board game. Also, chess is not scalable.

While the Baroque rules of Chess could only have been created by humans, the rules of Go are so elegant, organic, and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, they almost certainly play Go.

The rules for universal Go being, obviously, situational super-ko and area scoring. Komi and board size are the only aspects which are open to debate. If you wanna complain about anything else, get off my lawn.

I have to give Chess one point, though, for not being the least googleable subject there is.

[Alexander The 1st]

Chess.

Partially because I'm new to Go, but also because technically, if you made a mistake in Chess, the frustration from that allows you to see *why* you made the mistake, and able to realize what you want to focus on next time. Every move in Go requires you to think what the person would do if you did what you didn't do. Chess, you just have the possible moves on the board.

Chess is powerful in it's limitations.

[EvanED]

Through some combination of learning it first and being sort of okayish at it, I have to vote chess. I even played competitively for a few years back around high school, though I was actually pretty bad by those standards. At least I have some idea what I'm doing, unlike Go, at which I just get frustrated.

I realize that probably says more about me than the game, but still.

[Proginoskes]

I couldn't get past the rules for determining who wins a game ... Placing captured pieces in open areas and counting? Really?

Of course, I learned Chess first ...

[moiraemachy]

Yeah, the Japanese ruleset is an atrocity if you wish to introduce Go to someone, and wrecks the simplicity of the game. Just stick with

In area scoring (including Chinese rules), a player's score is determined by the number of stones that player has on the board plus the empty area surrounded by that player's stones.

[ahammel]

I play only chess, but I have to admit that go is superior in a number of ways. Go is probably more strategically deep than chess and has a much simpler set of rules. It's also scalable and the handicap system is much better.

On the other hand, the fact the chess has a complex rule set makes for very entertaining and beautiful composed problems. Complex rules mean a composer can find weird edge cases where the pieces have to behave in really bizzare ways. The Babson task is the classic example. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that go compositions are mostly game-like positions intended for training.

[EvanED]

Here's another awesome type of chess problem (though decidedly less... realism-based) which I doubt you could get for go: retrograde problems.

[ahammel]

Yeah, you probably can't compose a retro with a unique solution for go that goes past the second move.

[Jplus]

Actually I think you can do a limited form of retrograde analysis in go, but only as a human. If your opponent takes a "big point" while you don't want it, you can figure that you should have played there yourself, and then reason back to find out when you should have done that.

[ahammel]

Well sure, but that's not really a retrograde analysis problem in the sense meant by EvanED. A retro asks something like "given this position, what was white's last move?". In a good retro there's a unique solution, but I don't see how you could compose such a position in go (neoliminal's avatar aside).

[moiraemachy]

Well, chess is a lot sharper and more tactical, while I believe go is essentially positional after you get the basics. That probably allows way crazier constructions. You can still make some interesting stuff with kos, though, and they even appear in actual games sometimes. Case in point.

[Chewbaccawacca]

I suppose I like Chess better, but that's simply because I can usually find a partner to play. With GO I've had zero luck finding opponents. Whether that's due to a shortcoming of my own or my areas I am unsure. But sufice to say it exists and hence I prefer Chess.

[KnightExemplar]

Both are deep games to be sure, and unfortunately, AIs have gotten absurdly good at both games. Fortunately, Professional Go players are still beyond the abilities of Go AIs, which gives major bonus points to Go. I dunno if its really a good reason, but when games are "solved", it becomes hard for me to play them. I used to like Checkers, until I learned that Checkers was solved. Similarly, its harder for me to get into Chess... knowing that I'll likely never beat a Chess AI in my life.

Anyway, once you hit your first Ko war (or double-ko war) and you know what is going on, Go becomes a very different game. (WTF at the molasses Ko situation)

[Jplus]

So the idea that there will always be other monkeys that you can beat is not enough for you? You insist on feeling like an equal with our computer overlords? Sounds like hubris!

[Iranon]

Limitations at the high end don't matter too much to me - I can still have fun in endgames that I suspect to be solved, the best human players occasional blunder in over-the-board play, it's pretty firmly established that black can't win chess against perfect play by white and that didn't harm the game.
I prefer it, liking the opportunity for sharp tactical play and wildly different (breadth vs. depth) decision trees. On the other hand, maybe I'm simply not good enough at Go to appreciate its subtleties.

[SlyReaper]

Go is the clear choice. The rules are simpler and more logical, and yet the gameplay is so much deeper. The only downside is it's really hard to learn to play well. If you play people who are more than a couple of ranks stronger than you, you'll just get sandblasted and have no idea why. Even if they take the time to explain, you probably won't understand them.

Oh and you can't really gain much from playing against a Go program either. I've got mine set to the highest difficulty and I win about 75% of the time. And I suck at Go; the computer just sucks more.

[Jplus]

Go [...] If you play people who are more than a couple of ranks stronger than you, you'll just get sandblasted and have no idea why. Even if they take the time to explain, you probably won't understand them.

Hm it doesn't seem that bad to me. Usually I understand the explanations by (much) stronger players because they adjust to my level of understanding (which is quite low too); of course, you keep getting sandblasted after that.

[IIAOPSW]

I say Go is the better game.

Chess lacks elegance in my opinion. Its complexity arises out of a complex rule set. Any strategy game 6 different types of pieces and 16 pieces per player is guaranteed to have non trivial gameplay (not to mention special cases like castling).

Go on the other hand accomplishes a comparable complexity with just one type of piece, a few very simple rules and even fewer special cases.

[EvanED]

I say Go is the better game.

Chess lacks elegance in my opinion. Its complexity arises out of a complex rule set. Any strategy game 6 different types of pieces and 16 pieces per player is guaranteed to have non trivial gameplay (not to mention special cases like castling).

Go on the other hand accomplishes a comparable complexity with just one type of piece, a few very simple rules and even fewer special cases.

As a chess person, I never really got the argument that simpler & more elegant rules lead to a better game. I'd say that checkers is at least a simpler rule set than Go. (It's harder for me to argue elegance because I don't really know how to apply that term.) But is it a better game?

I mean, emergent behavior and such is awesome and all, but furthermore it's not like the chess rules are really all that complicated. Both games get tremendous amount of complexity from really pretty simple rules. I mean, compare to something like Starcraft, which is also an awesome game; chess might as well be tic-tac-toe. The FIDE laws of chess^* are less than 25 pages of 5"x7.75" pages, and that includes things like the touch-move rule, what happens if the players make a mistake and discover they are in an illegal position, how to keep score, how to deal with clocks, and a couple other misc. topics. The actual explanation of how the game proper works is around 10 of those small pages.

^*As printed in the 4th edition of the USCF rule book. (I used the FIDE rules because the USCF intersperses their version with a lot more of the "misc" stuff. But in terms of core material, it looks like about the some physical length.)

[ahammel]

As a chess person, I never really got the argument that simpler & more elegant rules lead to a better game. I'd say that checkers is at least a simpler rule set than Go. (It's harder for me to argue elegance because I don't really know how to apply that term.) But is it a better game?

I mean, emergent behavior and such is awesome and all [...]

I think that's really it: emergent complexity is awesome and go is a better demonstration of it than chess. That doesn't really have much to do with how enjoyable the game is to play, though. The rules of chess clearly have some kluges (two-space pawn moves, en-passant, castling) and, while that might offend some people's sense of elegance, it clearly improves the gameplay.

[SlyReaper]

To be fair, the Ko rule is a bit of a kludge too, albeit a very necessary one.

[anishgiri]

I do think chess is a better game. I like the elegance and art of a chess battle(how you form plans etc). For those who are not familiar there are many chess concepts like prophylaxis, opposition rule, minority attack, weak square, weak pawns, bad bishop, exchange sacrifice hanging pawns etc. I like how in an endgame you maneuver your way around to zugwang your opponent.

I like how in a difficult position, you defended yourself well from an opponent's initiative. I like how in chess you sacrifice the exchange(rook for a knight or bishop) for positional gains like better pawn structure, dark or light square control. I like how in chess you sacrifice a piece for a strong attack, I like how in chess you are seeing if your opponent has the technical knowledge to draw a difficult rook endgame that should be draw with best play. I like how you know your opponent is planning something, but you have seen more in the position, and you know his plan will not work. I like how in chess you exchange something to gain a control of key square.I like how in chess there is a very tactically complex positions that needs great calculation, I can go on and go on.

[notzeb]

I do think chess is a better game. I like the elegance and art of a chess battle(how you form plans etc). For those who are not familiar there are many chess concepts like prophylaxis, opposition rule, minority attack, weak square, weak pawns, bad bishop, exchange sacrifice hanging pawns etc. I like how in an endgame you maneuver your way around to zugwang your opponent.

I like how in a difficult position, you defended yourself well from an opponent's initiative. I like how in chess you sacrifice the exchange(rook for a knight or bishop) for positional gains like better pawn structure, dark or light square control. I like how in chess you sacrifice a piece for a strong attack, I like how in chess you are seeing if your opponent has the technical knowledge to draw a difficult rook endgame that should be draw with best play. I like how you know your opponent is planning something, but you have seen more in the position, and you know his plan will not work. I like how in chess you exchange something to gain a control of key square.I like how in chess there is a very tactically complex positions that needs great calculation, I can go on and go on.

This reminds me of a story about a certain frog who lived in a well...

[Jave D]

I like Chess because it inspires me to think about social roles in politics, utilizing the strengths and weaknesses of different types of peopl- I mean pieces to achieve outcomes without depending too much on any one thing. And there's a certain thrilling flavor and character to the pieces - the helpless old king who still might have a few battles left in 'im, the all-controlling queen, the crooked bishop, the mobile knights, the hapless but possibly overwhelmingly tenacious pawns, the mighty castles, the fall of kingdoms and the power of political plays within families. All very colorful. Go to me is kind of dry and never lets me forget for a minute that I'm just playing a board game. Of course, whatever floats your boat.

[anishgiri]

This reminds me of a story about a certain frog who lived in a well...

This post reminds me of a boy, who does not have a clue(or idea) of something he read.

[notzeb]

This reminds me of a story about a certain frog who lived in a well...

This post reminds me of a boy, who does not have a clue(or idea) of something he read.

There is only one way to settle this - I challenge you to a game of chess.

[anishgiri]

This reminds me of a story about a certain frog who lived in a well...

This post reminds me of a boy, who does not have a clue(or idea) of something he read.

There is only one way to settle this - I challenge you to a game of chess.

Call where do you play? I play in FICS.

[moiraemachy]

That made me think... why hasn't anyone invented a crazy mashup game to pit the best go and chess players, so we can finally discover which one is the supreme board game?

Spoiler:

My suggestion: chess board. White has 16 identical go pieces and black has chess pieces(go pieces go in squares. None of that intersection nonsense). Chess pieces do their usual stuff. Go pieces can teleport and capture by surrounding. The go player wins by capturing the king, and the chess player needs to kill every Go piece. Go pieces are bound by ko rules, so in the endgame they eventually die and the go player can't stall the match forever. That sounds like an easy win for chess, so tweaking the rules might be necessary... maybe boosting go pieces' ability to capture by making removing every liberty not necessary (if there isn't paths that leads a chess piece to at least 2 sides without crossing enemy pieces, it dies), reflecting how surrounded = dead in go...

Also, you can choose checkers as your race, but it's way underpowered.

[Proginoskes]

In Chess Life a few decades ago, a checker player played against a chess player; each set up their half of the board with their pieces and played by their rules. The checker player won, although the chess player has an unbeatable strategy.

[ahammel]

That made me think... why hasn't anyone invented a crazy mashup game to pit the best go and chess players, so we can finally discover which one is the supreme board game?

Spoiler:

My suggestion: chess board. White has 16 identical go pieces and black has chess pieces(go pieces go in squares. None of that intersection nonsense). Chess pieces do their usual stuff. Go pieces can teleport and capture by surrounding. The go player wins by capturing the king, and the chess player needs to kill every Go piece. Go pieces are bound by ko rules, so in the endgame they eventually die and the go player can't stall the match forever. That sounds like an easy win for chess, so tweaking the rules might be necessary... maybe boosting go pieces' ability to capture by making removing every liberty not necessary (if there isn't paths that leads a chess piece to at least 2 sides without crossing enemy pieces, it dies), reflecting how surrounded = dead in go...

Also, you can choose checkers as your race, but it's way underpowered.

There's a game called gess which uses arrays of go stones to simulate chess pieces. (I don't have url privileges, but there's a wikipedia page.)

[notzeb]

There is only one way to settle this - I challenge you to a game of chess.

Call where do you play? I play in FICS.

I just set up an account (notzeb) on FICS. What's your handle? What time do you play?

[Роберт]

Clearly Go.

[Garrett]

Yup, go is superior to chess (though I like shogi the best). On the other hand I suck at go big time while only a little at chess. But that's due to my non-existent memory. I can't predict far ahead because I forget pieces changed placement not to mention I don't even remember which moves I started playing in my head (I can't even count how many times I made a mistake like this: move1 is great move, I'm going to... no wait, it only looks good but it's terrible; move2 not; move3 not;...; move10 not; OH! move1 is awesome move! *does move1, happy face*... oh wait, shit...").

[cyanyoshi]

I love both games for different reasons, but the inner geek decrees go to be superior game. There is something extremely appealing about a game that can be taught to a four-year-old, yet which exhibits a degree of complexity beyond belief. It is the ultimate example of "easy to learn, hard to master". Aside from that, chess does have its merits. Chess is much more widely played where I live. I have yet to spontaneously meet another human being in real life who knows what go even is. Chess is pretty wacky, never failing to entertain me from start to finish, and it is more than complicated enough to make me happy. I even enjoy stuff like competitive Pokémon for its high variety and complexity (seriously...); it is fun and always keeps you on your toes, but the overly-complicated rules often just seem like complexity for the sake of complexity. What makes go unique is that it achieves everything I could ever want in a game, while starting from the bare minimum number of rules. It appeals to me on an intellectual level (chaos theory, game theory) as well as a non-intellectual one (go is fun to play).

Oh, and go can be generalized to different board sized for wildly different experiences (just compare a 5x5 game to a 19x19 one). And also, there is a good handicap system to play an interesting game against a player who is much better/worse than you.

[lorb]

Chess also has a handicap system. usually it's done by removing one of the rooks of the better player from the board (or even the queen)

[ahammel]

Chess also has a handicap system. usually it's done by removing one of the rooks of the better player from the board (or even the queen)

Yeah, but that's a terrible handicap system. It changes the character of the game entirely.

A better handicap is that the weaker player gets more time on his clock, but I would say even that is pretty clearly inferior to the go system.